Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s disease is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that affects one in ten people over the age of 65. As of today, there’s no known cure, and scientists still don’t fully understand every aspect of this disease. However, groundbreaking new research, published in ‘Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience,’ promises to be the next step forward, and will hopefully lead to a cure before too long.

The research shows that the onset of Alzheimer’s could be the result of bacteria bypassing the brain’s defences and infecting the neurons. Scientists studying the brains of deceased donors found that the type and quantity of bacteria differed between healthy brains and those with Alzheimer’s.

The researchers, from the UK’s University of Bristol, think that there may be a link between neuroinflammation and these newly-discovered bacteria populations. David Emery, one of the researchers, said that, ” Alzheimer’s brains usually contain evidence of neuroinflammation, and researchers increasingly think that this could be a possible driver of the disease, by causing neurons in the brain to degenerate.” Furthermore, he believes that “Neuroinflammation in the brain may be a reaction to the presence of bacteria.”